the police marshal of baltimore and the mayor of maryland or the mayor of baltimore, george william brown, all met at the mayor's home, and they had to come up with a plan. well, we don't want any more violence in our city. how can we stop it? by preventing soldiers from am coming through. how do we stop soldiers from coming through our city? by stopping the trains. well, how do we stop the trains? how about we burn all the railroad bridges around baltimore. if the bridges are burned out, then the trains can't pass through our city and if the trains can't pass through our city there won't be any more soldiers coming through and if the soldiers aren't coming through there won't be mob violence so the leaders of the government of maryland thought this was a good idea. on the night of april 19th and the early morning hours of april 20th members of the baltimore police and the maryland state militia rode around baltimore and around annapolis burning railroad bridges and here is a 19th century google map and shows you the train routes from philadelphia, harrisburg, from the west and around ann